St. Saviour grad aims high

Born and raised in Brooklyn, basketball became a part of Alyson Caiazzo’s life at a very young age. Her father would often call her Magic Johnson due to her height and point guard position.

“I’ve been playing since I was really young; my dad played [at a young age also] and was the one who taught me and my brothers,” said Caiazzo.

A St. Saviour High School alum, Caiazzo led the school to its first championship. At St. Saviour, she was also MVP her freshman and senior year, and received the CHSAA Sportsmanship Award, which she considers one of her greatest accomplishments.

“It really isn’t an award based on talent,” Caiazzo explained. “It’s just an award that all the coaches in the league voted on and that meant a lot to me.”

A key, she stressed is “that other [coaches] not just [mine] were able to see that I’m not just this basketball player [but] a good sports fan and I go out of my way to be nice to people and [not] just this one-dimensional kind of person.”

Caiazzo is now attending ManhattanvilleCollege, where she plays center-forward and is majoring in finance. At a recent game Caiazzo’s “seven blocks tied the program’s single-game record, set by Chioma Udeogalanya on February 4, 2004 against Saint Joseph’s (L.I.), while her rebound total was the most by a Valiant since Lori Thiemann’s program-record 28 versus King’s (N.Y.) on February 10, 1987, and tied for third on the school’s single-game list,” according to her school’s website.

Caiazzo was also named Mac Conference Player of The Week.

A proud New Yorker, Caiazzo’s favorite basketball team is the New York Knicks and her favorite player is Allan Houston, who she has been a fan of watching him play when she was a young child.

So what’s a normal day in the life of Alyson? “Just wake up, basketball, school, and more basketball,” said Caiazzo. She continues to be motivated each day by the love and support of her family, as well as by her role models who she considers to be her parents as well as her grandmothers, who she admires for their strength and ability to keep their families together despite the death of their husbands.

Before she graduates, Caiazzo hopes to win the Freedom Conference Championship and make it to the NCAA. She states, “ That will be a dream come true if we manage to win, which wouldn’t be impossible but it would just be amazing to do that.”